


In Which the Pendragons Help Keep Portland Weird

by Untherius



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: Sophie finds that adapting to life in Howl's world has more of a learning curve than she'd expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhenasInSilks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenasInSilks/gifts).



Sophie Pendragon finished a final stir with a flourish, inspecting her work. While most coffee baristas affected some sort of leafy pattern in latte froth, Sophie found she had a penchant for things like flowers, flames, and dragons. Today, she had chosen daffodils, specifically.

Ever since she had first laid eyes on them, she had been enchanted by those sunny yellow flowers. And now, as the city lay in the grip of what everyone kept saying was the final winter storm of the season--which they had been saying since mid-February--she more than ever looked forward to the spring blooms.

“Now,” she said to the beverage in low tones, “you are going to perk up miss...” She glanced at the name scrawled in black Sharpie on the cup. “...Janet, and she is going to annihilate her job interview today. And it will be all thanks to you.”

Well, she added to herself, that and a little judiciously-applied magic.

“Janet,” she called, “your beverage is ready!”

Moments later, Janet picked up her cup. Her smile broadened. “A daffodil? Wow, I'm impressed.”

Sophie smiled back. “Thank you. And Janet? Annihilate it!”

Janet chortled. “Um...thanks. I think?”

Sophie turned back to prepare the next beverage, a pair of white mochas with peppermint sprinkles. “And you,” she said, whipping the froth into more daffodils, “are going to earn Bruce his first date with Cecily. But only if he is worthy of her,” she added.

Next, an egg nog latte. Sophie had to suppress a mischievous grin each time one of those came up. Every other coffee shop in the greater Northwest had run out of egg nog by early February. Or so she'd been told. Her closely-guarded secret, shared only with her husband, sisters, and Charmain Baker, was a certain enchantment she had placed on their carton of egg nog. Or, rather, a special enchanted carton she and Howl had constructed specifically for containing and dispensing egg nog.

Howl had told her that, under no circumstances, was she to tell anyone else that she had a never-ending carton of egg nog. He had made it abundantly clear that if she did, then she would be the one to try to explain it to organizations like MIT, the Pentagon, MI-6, and NPR Science Friday.

She had no idea what any of those things were, nor was she completely sure her husband hadn't made them up. But she didn't need Howl or anyone else to tell her twice about keeping the proverbial lid on magic.

But she did love egg nog. Which was a merciful comfort, even given the differences in egg nogs of her and Howl's respective worlds.

After the egg nog latte...she frowned. “Martha? It looks like this says, 'half-caff decaf cafe au lait, white mocha, vanilla.' Is that correct?”

Martha looked at the cup, then nodded.

Sophie sighed heavily. Only in the Northwest did it take ten words to order a drink that the rest of the world, and hers, just called “coffee.”

* * *

Sophie looked up from her accounting, glad of the diversion. She frowned. There, perched on the edge of her table and under the mischievous eye of her husband, sat a large pink box with black writing on it. She peered suspiciously at it.

“Zero?” she asked.

“Erm...what?” said Howl.

Sophie pointed at the writing. “It says, 'zero.'”

“How does it say 'zero?'”

“The square root of zero times zero times delta-zero times zero, all over doughnut,” she said decisively.

Howl blinked. “Uh...no, it says, 'Voodoo Doughnut.'”

Sophie cocked her head. “Huh,” she said.

“Go ahead,” said Howl, “open it.”

Sophie cocked an eye at him. “Should I be afraid?”

“Oh, come now,” he said. “It's me.”

“I know. That is why I asked.” She held his gaze for several moments, then tentatively opened the box.

Inside were several of the pastries called doughnuts. One was covered with white icing and sprinkled with small, multicolored rings of some crunchy substance. Another was also iced in white and sprinkled with tiny orange and black sprinkles. A third bore what she thought she recognized as shredded coconut. A fourth...she pointed at it.

“Is that one supposed to look like...like...like...” She just couldn't bring herself to say it.

“Yes,” said Howl. “Yes it is.”

Sophie slammed the box closed. “Portland is _so_ weird!”

* * *

Sophie walked into the family's living area. Lettie sat at a desk, scratching away at a pencil sketch that Sophie couldn't quite see at that angle. Knowing her sister, it was probably yet another drawing of Mt. Hood.

Not that Sophie could blame her. Ingary had nothing like the stunningly beautiful Cascade volcanoes. In fact, Ingary was, to quote Howl, a bloody lot like bloody England. She still had to take his word for it.

“Lettie, have you seen that husband of mine?”

“Yes,” said Lettie, and returned her attention to her drawing.

Sophie blinked. “And? Do you know where he went?”

Lettie tapped her pencil against her chin pensively. “I think he said...Powell's City of Books.”

“I see,” she said, though she didn't. “Where might I find this Powell's City of Books?”

“Um...give me a minute.” Lettie put down her drawing and opened her laptop. She toggled a new browser tab, and went to work.

Sophie shook her head slowly. That her sister had so completely embraced the technology of this world had baffled her. She still remembered quite clearly the day Howell had first dragged her through that portal of his. Nearly everything had been strange and frightening. Since then, she had learned a lot about, well, an awful lot.

“Got it,” said Lettie. “Tenth and Burnside. Here...” She pointed at a map on the screen. “Tri-Met should take you right to it.”

Sophie took a moment to commit the map to memory. “Should I bring anyone? Charmain, perhaps?”

Lettie chortled. “Oh, gods, no! Remember what happened when we all went to the Portland Library?”

Sophie nodded. They'd had to drag poor Miss Baker out of there kicking and screaming. The expressions of several exquisite types of horror on those witnessing the spectacle seemed forever burned into her memory.

“Well, from what I have heard about this Powell's place, she would positively disappear in there and we would never see her again.”

“Oh, dear. Never mind, then. Are you sure you have things under control for a while?”

Lettie nodded. “No problem. Besides, Charmain has the Friday shift with Martha, remember?”

Sophie grunted. “And Morgan?”

“Sophie, he is three. What could possibly go wrong?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You know his father, and you have to ask that?”

Lettie batted her eyelashes. “We will be fine. Will we not, Morgan?” She looked down at the boy in question.

Morgan played seemingly innocuously on the floor with a set of wooden blocks. Of course, Sophie knew full well that anything innocuous about her son was equally likely to be illusory as not. But, Sophie also had to admit that not only did she occasionally need some time to herself, Lettie adored Morgan as much as she would were he hers.

Sophie exhaled. “Very well. But if I have to say I told you so...”

“Oh, just get going, would you? We will be fine.”

Sophie nodded, then spun about and left the room. She steadfastly went out the back way. Knowing herself as she did, she would probably be sucked into some crisis or other and it would take her an hour just to cross the shop.

A little while later, she found herself standing on one of the buses of Tri-Met, gripping a shiny metal railing so tightly, she was sure she could have cracked a walnut. How ever did the people of this world come up with such things?

She gazed out the windows as the vehicle rumbled across the Burnside Bridge. Far below her feet, the Willamette River flowed serenely northward. A little ways off, the Steel Bridge raised iron girders above its decking. Just to the left of that, the clock tower of Union Station blazed brick-red among the grey concrete around it. Beyond that, the impossibly high steel arch of Fremont Bridge rose up out of the mist.

In the other direction, past Morrison and Hawthorn Bridges, the dizzyingly high ferroconcrete span of Markham Bridge hung high above the water. To the west, dozens of glass-faced towers scraped the sky. Other vehicles streamed past eastbound.

Then the bus dropped down to ground-level and screeched to a halt. Sophie resisted the urge to launch herself off the bus through the abruptly-opening doors behind her. Instead, she dragged in a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it back out.

Every time she boarded a motor vehicle, her mind transported her back to that first harrowing ride through the Welsh countryside. She hadn't been able to shake her mistrust of the confounded things. And the flight from Wales to Oregon aboard something called a Boeing 777 had only exacerbated what Lettie called her “technophobia.”

“You are going to be fine, Sophie,” she muttered to herself. “You will conquer these devilish conveyances the people of this world have conjured with their techno-magics. You have faced worse and you will overcome this, too.” Unsurprisingly, the self-talk made her feel better. Besides, what good was being a powerful empathic wizardess if she couldn't occasionally use her powers for good?

“Hi!”

Sophie nearly started. She turned toward the source of that voice and found herself staring slightly downward into a pair of hazel eyes nearly the same shade as her own.

“Erm...good afternoon,” said Sophie.

“So,” said the woman, “are you going to the meet-up this evening?”

“Sorry?”

“The steampunk meet-up.”

“Steam...what?”

The woman smiled. “Staying in persona, I see. Well-played. I love your dress, by the way.”

Sophie glanced down at herself and the forest green linen she wore. She had never considered her clothing to be anything to write home about. Even four years of marriage to Howl had not broken her of her love of earth tones.

“This old thing?” she said.

The woman chuckled. “Well, it's very authentic. Say, where are you headed?”

“Tenth and Burnside.”

“Powell's Books, right?”

Sophie nodded. “Does everyone know about that?”

The woman laughed. “Well, yeah. There's not much else at tenth and Burnside anyway. I mean, unless you like vegan pizza. Or you're planning to walk over to the Pearl. Which I wouldn't recommend. Not right now, anyway.”

“Why not?” Now, Sophie was curious.

“Forecast is for freezing rain tonight.”

“Is that not called hail?”

The woman chuckled. “You really aren't from around here, are you?”

Sophie shook her head, then tightened her grip on the rail as the bus resumed its motion. “Ingary,” she said.

“Never heard of it. Is that in England?”

“It is...” How in the worlds was Sophie supposed to explain that? The last time she'd discussed the topic with Howl, he'd gone on about the Multiverse and had left her, Lettie, Martha, and Charmain all gaping like codfish. “...sort of, yes.”

That wasn't entirely accurate, of course. But close enough, seeing as how she'd first entered this world in Wales. Which was not exactly England. Or, rather, it was to England as Strangia was to Ingary. More or less.

“Then, welcome to Portland!”

The bus slowed again.

“This is your stop,” said the woman.

Sophie looked over. “Sure. Thank you.”

“No problem. Have a nice day!”

Sophie smiled and nodded, then picked up her skirts and trotted down the steps and onto the sidewalk. She breathed a sigh of relief. She nearly bumped into a dirty-looking man, who peered back at her with a half-vacant expression that made her skin crawl.

“Pretty lady,” he slurred, “have I seen you somewhere before?”

Sophie made a powerful effort to collect herself. “Um...no, I do not believe so.”

“You look so familiar. What's your name?”

Sophie resisted an eye roll. She didn't have time for this. She waved a hand surreptitiously in his direction. “You do not need to see my identification.”

“No, I guess I don't need to know. I must be wrong.”

“I really should be going about my business.”

“Never mind, I'm sure you have things to do.”

“And I must be going.”

“Sure. Go on.” The man turned aside and shuffled off down the street.

Sophe let out another sigh. A couple of minutes later, she stepped through double doors and into the lobby of Powell's City of Books. She came to a screeching halt, barely noticing that she had, in fact, managed to stop right in the middle of everyone's way.

She finally came to herself enough to step aside and take her bearings. A long room stretched out before her. On the left, a sign hanging over a very long counter identified it as Cashier. To her right, a small kiosk said Information. It appeared to contain a map of the store. That a store could be large enough to require a map did not seem like a good sign. At the far end, another sign hanging over several full bookshelves said New Arrivals. The entire room had been trimmed in a conspicuously bright shade of green.

“Hello, miss, can I help you?”

Sophie half-started and blinked at a tall, blue-eyed man in thick-rimmed glasses. He smiled at her through a neatly-trimmed beard that spilled out over a long-sleeved checkered shirt tucked into olive-drab pants held up by brown suspenders.

“I am supposed to meet my husband here,” she said.

“Hmm,” he said. “Can you describe him?”

“Of course. He...” She paused. “On second thought, I believe I can find him myself. But thank you for asking all the same.”

“Sure, no sweat.”

Sophie reached out with her mind, pushing through the collective living energies of the people around her. She touched each mind ever so briefly, beginning in the Green Room. She gradually pushed outward and eventually upward. Finally, she found him.

“The third floor,” she muttered. “Naturally. That man can not do anything the easy way.”

She set off across the room. She turned a corner, dodging customers carrying books, then hoisted her skirts to assault first one flight of stairs, and then another and another, until she crested out in the Pearl Room.

Signs alongside the bookshelves identified subjects like Art, Science, and Computing. Her husband, however, was in the Rare Book Room, just ahead and to the right. That was not a good sign either.

She collected herself and strode into the Rare Book Room. She immediately noticed the competing smells of dusty books and Howl's aftershave.

Howl looked up. His face immediately cracked into a warm smile. “Sophie! What brings you here?”

She walked over to him and smiled back, despite herself. “You do,” she said.

“Oh?” He pulled a small, rectangular object from an inside coat pocket. “You could have called.”

Sophie peered at Howl's cell phone. “Mmm. And Lettie could have reminded me that we have those.”

“So you walked all the way over here to ask me something?”

“No. I rode that Tri-Met bus contraption. Horrible, beastly thing.”

“Did you white-knuckle?” he asked.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Did I what?”

“You know. Did your knuckles turn white?”

“How should I know?”

Howl shrugged. “They're your knuckles. I just assumed...”

Sophie sighed. “Howl Pendragon, you should know perfectly well that a lady never goes out in this sort of weather without gloves.” She held up a hand, still shrouded in black kid-skin leather.

Howl's smile broadened. He gently took her hands and held them between his. “You know how I like you in leather.”

Sophie batted her eyelashes. Truth be told, she very much liked when her husband spoke to her that way. But there were just some things that should not be discussed in public.

“Howl Pendragon, you are incorrigible!”

“Alright, alright, don't get excited.”

“Howl, being held by you is quite enough to get me excited.”

Howl smirked.

“You scoundrel, you,” she said.

“Scoundrel. Scoundrel?”

“I always figured I would marry a nice man.”

“I'm a nice man.”

“No, you're not. You're...”

“Hey,” said a woman from a few feet away, “is this man bothering you?”

Sophie tittered slightly. “More than you know,” she said.

“Look, mister,” said the woman, “the lady said...”

Sophie cleared her throat. “Oh, I can handle him, believe me.” She flashed her best smile.

The woman blinked. “Um...are you sure?”

“Oh, yes. Quite sure.” She leaned slightly toward the woman. “We have been married for four years, after all.”

“The four most interesting years of my life,” Howl added.

“Okay,” said the woman, “if you say so.”

Sophie watched her retreat from the room. “What a peculiar person,” she said quietly.

“So,” said Howl a moment later, “you were saying?”

“You wanted to show me something?”

“Ah, yes,” said Howl, in that smug way that seemed to annoy everyone except Sophie. He reached out toward a nearby table. A book rose off of it and flitted through the air. He caught it deftly and showed Sophie the spine.

Sophie peered at it. “Um...” she began.

Then she switched to what Howl called the Ingarian Dialect of English. Which wasn't exactly English per se, so much as it was a parallel linguistic development that just happened to sound a lot like Early Modern English with a little Middle English thrown in. Or so Howl had explained it once. The upshot of it was close enough to his own English to let him blend in well enough when he had first arrived in Ingary years earlier, but it was also different enough to be used as a sort of code without drawing a lot of undue attention. Her accent, perceived to be vaguely British, only contributed to the overall effect.

“Howl, you know I am still having difficulty with that...what did Charmain call it...morpho-phonemic orthography of yours.”

“It is not in English anyway,” said Howl, also in the Ingarian dialect.

Sophie cocked an eyebrow. “So why are you showing it to me if you knew I would be unable to read it?”

“Because I thought you would recognize the script.”

Sophie looked again, then shook her head.

“It is, if I am not mistaken, Rashpuhti script. Second Dynasty.”

Sophie cocked her head at her husband. “Rashpuht?”

“It is...”

“Yes, yes, I know where it is. But what is a Rashpuhti text doing in your world?”

Howl shrugged. “I have no idea.” His smile broadened. “But now it is mine. Rather,” he added, “it will be, once I pay for it.”

“Do I want to know what is in it?”

“Arcane knowledge, my dear.”

“When it comes to you, that seldom bodes well.”

“Sophie, you wound me.”

“Hardly.”

“Arcane knowledge is what brought me to Ingary in the first place.”

Sophie considered that for a moment. “Very well,” she conceded. “But it is still dangerous.”

“Which is why this belongs in the hands of someone who knows how to handle it responsibly.”

“Well, that rules you out.”

Howl snorted. “Well, then, it is settled. Besides, you called me a scoundrel.”

“So I did.”

“But you like me that way.”

Sophie looked into his eyes for several moments. Then she grabbed him, pulled him down, and kissed him soundly. Unsurprisingly, he didn't resist. She was pretty sure that the use of tongue was not terribly proper in public, but at that moment, she just didn't care.

Sophie felt a fluttering from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. That was the closest she'd ever come to describing it. And describing it mattered even less to her than the degree of passion displayed in the middle of a bookstore. One of the few genuine things about Howl was the way he kissed Sophie. Through it, he poured all his love and passion for her, and that was something that could never be hidden. Not from her. Not like that.

After several moments, they pulled apart.

“Maybe,” he said, “the arcane knowledge of the ages can wait just a little longer.”

Sophie nodded.

“I am still going to pay for this, though.”

“Just do not keep it on the night-stand.”

* * *

The bus ride back to the shop nearly obliterated the warm, fuzzy mood that had filled her on the way out of the Pearl Room. What the bus didn't do, the sight of what was going on inside the shop finished.

Sophie and Howl stopped dead in their tracks, gaping in horror at the coffee shop. Sophie was quite sure she had never seen anything so horrific in her life.

What had been a half-dozen or so incandescent bulbs illuminating the outdoor seating area had turned several different rotating colors. Inside was even worse. Every bulb had been turned to a different color. A few even moved. From the ceiling hung a slowly-rotating ball completely covered in small rectangular mirrors.

Michael and Martha stood behind the counter, finishing up a couple of drinks. Charmain sat at one of the tables, sipping a warm drink and peering intensely at a novel, apparently oblivious to anything else. Lettie crouched on the floor, arm outstretched toward Morgan. Morgan, in turn reached toward one of the colored lights, an intent expression on his face.

“Before you say anything,” Michael blurted, “it was all Morgan's doing.”

Sophie turned to Lettie. “You told me you would be fine!”

“And we were!” Lettie gushed, looking away from Morgan.

“What in the worlds _is_ this?” Sophie yelped, gesturing wildly at the kaleidoscope of light.

“Oh, it is...it is...actually, I have no idea what it is,” said Lettie, “but it sure is pretty!”

Howl suddenly bellowed laughter. “Martha!” he shouted. “Tune the radio to ninety-eight-five FM, would you?”

Moments later, the easy-listening music filtering through the room's half-hidden electric speakers abruptly changed to something the likes of which Sophie was quite sure she had never heard. The lyrics were a little less-than-clear, but it sounded to her like the song might be coming to a close.

“...I, I will survive!”

After a little more of the admittedly up-beat music, a male voice came on. “You're listening to ninety-eight-five FM, where disco lives forever! And now, wouldn't we all appreciate just a bit more heat right about now? Sure we would.”

The voice gave way to some more of that catchy music with its driving beat, the song sung by a woman.

Sittin' here eatin' my heart out waitin'  
Waitin' for some lover to call  
Dialed about a thousand numbers lately  
Almost rang the phone off the wall 

Lookin' for some hot stuff baby this evenin'  
I need some hot stuff baby tonight...

Sophie stood there, blinking. What in the worlds did all that mean? Clearly, the metaphors were lost on her. But the shop's patrons seemed to be getting into it, so who was she to argue? As usual, she thought a bit too soon.

Howl stepped out into the middle of the room and struck what Sophie figured her husband thought was a dramatic pose, legs apart, one hand thrust toward the ceiling.

Most of the room's occupants erupted in cheers. Almost before Sophie could blink again, Howl made a gesture with his hands. His suit suddenly became more gaudy than anything Sophie had ever seen him wear. She had thought the colored lights with their reflective ball had been horrific, but that paled in comparison to her husband's new attire.

His pants, in some metallic purple fabric and held up by a thick white-leather belt with a palm-sized gold buckle, flared out at their bottoms, sturdy silver boots with thick soles poking out from the cuffs. His white shirt suddenly had more ruffles than even Howl would normally wear, but open halfway down, revealing more of his chest hair than Sophie knew was even remotely proper. His jacket had become a sparkly blue color that somehow managed not to clash with his pants.

People cheered again and after another beat, he began to dance. Sophie had no idea how to even begin to describe the moves. The only thing she could do was stand there, gaping like a cod-fish. A quick glance at her sisters told her that was all they could do, too. Morgan, however, seemed utterly delighted. And Charmain, having managed to pry her attention away from her book, wore one of the goofiest smiles Sophie thought she'd ever seen on her.

She overheard a customer say something about a “Saturday Night Fever” and another mention someone named John Travolta. The music eventually changed again, accompanied by even more cheering.

Young man, there's no need to feel down.  
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.  
I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town  
There's no need to be unhappy. 

Young man, there's a place you can go.  
I said, young man, when you're short on your dough.  
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find  
Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.  
It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A...

To Sophie's horror, many of the people in the room, including Lettie and Charmain, leaped to their feet and began to do some sort of charades whenever YMCA was mentioned in the song. She was too shocked to pick her jaw up off the floor.

Whatever this Saturday Night Fever thing was, she hoped it was not contagious. Why was it called that, anyway? It was Friday. And who was this John Travolta? Patient Zero? If so, why was it not called “Travolta's Disease?” The whole thing defied the sensibilities.

* * *

Some time later, she and Howl lay in bed, breathing heavily after their mutual exertions.  
“  
What was that, anyway?” she asked. “Down there in the shop, I mean.”

Howl chuckled. “Disco Fever!”

Sophie pulled back slightly. “Is it contagious?”

“Only if you have soul!”

“That is not very reassuring.”

“Remind me to show you 'Saturday Night Fever.'”

Sophie frowned. “Is that another disease?”

Howl laughed. “No, no, no. It's a movie.”

“A...oh, right. Those moving-picture things you have in this world, yes?”

Howl nodded. “And you know,” he said, in that pensive tone that never boded well, “I've been thinking.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

“Because every time you say, 'I have been thinking,' some very strange, and sometimes very dangerous, things come out of your mouth.”

“Hrmph,” said Howl. But he forged onward anyway. “We should change the name of the shop.”

“What is wrong with 'Moving Castle Coffee?'”

“Because we have no moving castle. We should either have a moving castle to go along with it...”

Sophie groaned. “Oh, dear,” she moaned, “here we go again.”

**Author's Note:**

> For more on Voodoo Doughnut:  
> http://www.voodoodoughnut.com/
> 
> For more on Powell's Books:  
> http://www.powells.com/


End file.
